


The growth of living timber

by oneinspats



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Javert survives, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Seine, for a writing meme over on tumblr, too much homer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 21:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15276210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneinspats/pseuds/oneinspats
Summary: A short-short in response to a prompt:  "Valvert. The lights were still lit, despite a new day was already approaching."Post-Seine - a quiet conversation about books and a dead writer who gave us that famous line about the Mediterranean being blood black in colour.





	The growth of living timber

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tolpen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tolpen/gifts).



The lights are still on though a new day approaches and like Homer’s  _Iliad_  thin tendrils of sun are unfurling over muggy, August Paris. Javert is in a wretched state and so decides to read about other men in wretched states. God, in His ineffable manner, made it so that Valjean’s collection of wretched books on wretched men in wretched states is expansive.

Javert hates this. He turns a page. He thinks about muses singing. There had been a time when he had thought to know what such a thing was. Sing o’ muse of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus. Now? He has become Priam weeping over the hands of the man who slew what little bedrock he had left upon which to rest.

And trust Valjean to be the man to do it! He hadn’t thought of him in years then there he was in Montreuil-sur-mere, then here in Paris, where will he be next? Heaven. Ah, well, in death Javert will be rid of him. Assuming death will be allowed him.

A knock.

‘Go away.’

In the  _Iliad_  Javert is at this point:  _Why so much grief for me? No man will hurl me down to Death, against my fate. And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it, neither brave man nor coward, I tell you - it’s born with us the day that we are born._

He wants to hurl the book down to Death.

‘I thought you might want breakfast. It is an early hour to break it but I thought you might want something.’

Valjean is an uncertain man, Javert has learned since his unfortunate rescue from an unfortunate (and wretched!) bridge. This fact, when it landed, had surprised him. He had always thought of Valjean as a very steady, sure-minded sort of person. Stiff-necked at the very least.

But men do change.

God, in His ineffable desire to inflict misery upon one Inspector Javert, has made it so he knows, without a single scrap of doubt, that men can and do change. And change is such a horrific, torturous process.

As a boy he had seen a snake shed its skin so it came out new. The patterns upon scales had not changed but there was now gloss to its cold body. He wonders what he will look like should he come to the other side of this.

‘I guess I’ll leave it by the door?’

Javert sighs very loudly. He swings his legs off the bed he had been allocated in Valjean’s perverse desire to be charitable, and opens the door.

‘You’re a burr,’ Javert says.

A plate with cold cuts and a cup of coffee are offered. It is too early for food but Valjean looks almost small in the dark hall, half dressed, trying to be something like goodness.

‘Coffee?’

‘Fine.’ He takes the offering.

‘How are you finding Homer? He’s one of my companions of old.’

‘Tedious.’

‘Oh.’

‘I dislike reading.’

Such a look of horror on Valjean’s face. ‘But who will be your friends when you’re alone? I think, you and I, inspector, do know loneliness well.’

‘I have no friends, then.’

‘I will give you another. We will find something you like. Everyone likes something.’

Javert looks at Valjean with mild amusement. ‘If it pleases you to do so.’

‘Truly?’ Valjean becomes reproachful. ‘You have gone through life with no silent companions?’

‘Did I say as much? By your standards of silent companions, sure. I am friendless. I read what I deem necessary for my occupation and to remain well informed of things that matter. But I dislike books. So yes, of books I have no friends. But that does not mean I am without my own means of keeping myself company. As you said, monsieur, we both know loneliness well.’

It occurs to Javert that they are in a ridiculous stance. Valjean awkward in the hallway, Javert awkwardly holding a plate and coffee in the doorway. He takes a step back, inclines his head in thanks, and closes the door with his foot.

From the otherside he hears Valjean, ‘I’ll leave some books outside your door. I know a few you might like.’

Javert rolls his eyes, deposits breakfast and coffee on the small desk that lives in a corner. Picking up Homer he seats himself on the stool and picks away at the plate as Paris unfurls itself for the day. 


End file.
